“The advance of technology, like the growth of population & tech education, have been proceeding exponentially. It is one “L” of challenge to keep up”

Once a year, I take a deep breath, open the overflowing CES folder in my inbox, and sort through hundreds of Emails to see the tech trends at CES – the largest Consumer Electronic Show in the world. (8-12 Jan 18, Las Vegas) Sure, I spend all year studying the tech world and looking for the Tech Trends, but it’s the hundreds of products unveiled or announced at the show that really set the agenda for the year ahead in tech.

Expected Stuff. There’s always stuff to watch, from the Halo “5D printer” by Ethereal Machines to Sniffy, a French company selling a screen that somehow conveys smell & taste. Here’s a few tech trends that you’ll see emerge in Las Vegas and in the year ahead – we’ll see how accurate my predictions are soon.

1. Alexa (& “touchless computing”) explode. The big story in 2017 was the rise of the Smart Assistant, with Alexa embedded in everything from speakers & lights, to cars & even furniture. This year promises even more pervasive adoption of Voice computing, but the widespread adoption of “touchless” interfaces should make Voice Assistants far more versatile in the year ahead. “Imagine picking up your empty bottle of juice and saying ‘Alexa, order this’ and it being ordered for you, without you, since Alexa understands what you’re looking at or holding.” This will require cameras and detailed geo-location abilities like that being shown off at previous CES by Crea.vision, which uses Computer Vision sensors to recognize who’s where in your house.

2. Voice Assistants will sell you on Smart Homes. The widespread acceptance of VA will be a huge driver for the smart home in the year ahead, and I expect will be the primary driver of Smart Home products. You bought a speaker, so why not get lights, locks & thermostats to work with it? So sure, expect to hear about dozens of new smart speakers, including LG’s newly unveiled ThinQ. Look beyond that and you’ll see the real promise of the Internet of Things taking shape: a smart button for pervasive connectivity, a smart Fertility monitor from a new company called Mira. A smart Deadbolt you can unlock from your phone. And technology like Qualcomm’s Smart Audio Platform to bring voice control & connectivity to everything that isn’t yet connected.

3. A use for AR\VR? I’m not a believer in Virtual Reality’s power to transform the world. I don’t want to sit on the couch next to my friends and family encased in a headset and in my own world, I want to watch a movie and laugh and cry along with everyone else. But it’s hard to discount the slew of AR announcements we’re seeing around CES. For example, Lumus makes “transparent” displays that enable AR headsets. in December, the company announced a major deal with Quanta, a giant manufacturer with designs on the space. Epson is unveiling a new version of its Moverio AR glasses. ThirdEye will show off the X1 glasses. In fact, there’s a whole Augmented Reality marketplace in the South Hall of CES.

4. Autonomous is cool, but Electric Cars rule. We’ve only begun to scratch the surface of self-driving cars – which remain the most eye-catching & buzzy showpieces of CES. But it’s not only the vehicle manufacturer’s booths you’ll want to check out: Most big tech companies have their eyes on autos. Intel’s many initiatives at CES include the technology featured “under the hood”. Graphics giant Nvidia has transformed itself into a leader in the machine-vision that lets cars pilot themselves. Speech-recognition pioneer Dragon aims to help you and your car chat, and so on.. Meanwhile, the real trend to watch is the explosion of the . . .

Electric Car market – including a brand new entry to the space, Byton, promises to be not just an Electric car but “a smart intuitive vehicle”. Then there’s Solo – the world’s only one-person, all electric vehicle. Nissan will be showing off the 2018 Leaf. Do we need electric charging stations at every shopping mall? Yes !!!

5. Better Laptops than ever before. New SnapDragon chips from Qualcomm enable a new generation of Laptops that for the first time ever, really provide a viable alternative to traditional Intel & AMD chips. SnapDragon-powered laptops were unveiled in Hawaii last month. They boast battery life of up to 25 hours. Expect to hear about a dozen or so other models from CES 2018. Meanwhile, chips based on Intel’s 8G Core i7 will abound as well, such as the very attractive Samsung Notebook 9.

6. The Death of Cable TV. Any savy consumer knows 4K is the big buzzword in TVs. Shopping for a new flat-screen? This year at CES, LG plans to show off an 8K TV, which is sure to make you the envy of the neighbors. LG’s latest is a huge 88-inch 8K OLED TV that will be the largest display on the planet. The TV’s resolution will be 16 times more pixels than 6K and 4 times that of today’s 4K TVs. But here’s the thing: TV simply hasn’t kept pace. And consumers know this. Buy a new TV and they don’t turn on CBS, they head straight to Netflix, both for the superior quality of content and for the higher resolutions. As more 4K and ultimately 8K sets are released, and visual quality from Comcast, Charter, Time Warner, Cox, & even FiOS + AT&T continue to lag, the pace of cord cutting is sure to improve. Watch for it.

7. Wireless Power is here at last. Cota is still trying and unveiled November. The Forever Battery is a wirelessly charged alternative to AA batteries, and it won a CES 2017 Innovation Award. Meanwhile, WiBa will show off a power bank that charges itself wirelessly while simultaneously charging your phones & other gadgets wirelessly. The death of wires is imminent!

8. Chinese companies you’ve never heard of take over. Chinese companies exploded at the 2017 show. From car companies like Faraday Future & LeEco to TV makers like TCL & Hisense (which calls itself “the biggest company you’ve never heard of”). Expect even more of a presence from China, as the country moves to rival Asian powerhouses like South Korea & Japan for U.S. $$$. We expect an enormous showing from Huawei. The company recently ran a series of ads describing one of its products as “the best phone you’ve never heard of” — get the theme here? — and plans to make sure that in 2018, you hear of them. Look for big news from Xiaomi, TCL – which says it as “among America’s fast-growing TV brand for the past four years” – and others.

Comments: Are you impressed with any Tech Trends you are expecting at 2018 CES?